Social Action at the Start of the Year

From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:


 

A Report from Annette DeMarco
Social Action Committee Chairperson




 


Hello All!

I am taking us back to November 5th, when many, many (did I mention many?) members cooked and/or served some very hungry and grateful folks at the shelter in Hackensack. Sincerest thanks to all who gave up their Sunday. We all came away, as we always do, feeling different.

Then came the Center for Food Action, asking us to have a food drive for Thanksgiving items, and we obliged. I delivered approximately eight bags of groceries while others from the congregation brought frozen turkeys. Once again, our small but mighty membership came through. Can’t thank you all enough!

Next was our Mitzvah Mall on December 3rd and it was a major success! It was so, not only because we raised over $700 for the organizations we were representing, but because our wonderful students were so very engaged in what it was all about. Then again, it didn't hurt having Forrest and Andy there, a therapy dog and a service dog, with their handler, Carol, to make us "oo and ahhh".

So, I offer special thanks all around, to members of the Social Action Committee who worked on this event behind the scenes as well as on the day of; to our students, parents and general membership for showing support to this program; to Cantor Horowitz and our school staff for their assistance; to the School Committee for working with me in so many ways, and to Rabbi Schwartz, whose enthusiasm in his welcome speech was contagious and who, once again, offered to match all donations from his discretionary fund.

It’s time for Souper Bowl III at Adas Emuno! Once again, we will be battling against “Team Hunger” during the month of January, up through Sunday, February 4th (the date of that other Super Bowl).

Please bring soup to the temple during this time and let's see if “Team A.E.” can continue it’s winning streak against “Team Hunger” for the third year in a row!

With a heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped to bring tikkun olam, healing of the world, throughout 2017, I wish you a happy and healthy 2018.


Annette 
acheryl21 at gmail.com

Youth Group News

From the pages of Kadima, the Newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

Youth Group News from Samantha Rosenbloom:

Plans for January and February include a game day in the social hall and a movie at IPIC! 

Thank you to all who donated gifts during the holiday season; they will be given to the Bergen County Chapter of CASA, to be distributed throughout the year to children who need some extra love during holidays and birthdays!

Religious School at the Start of 2018

From the pages of Kadima, the Newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

Religious School News 

     from


Cantor Sandy Horowitz

Religious School Director

Happy 2018… a new (secular) year begins! As of January 7th the Religious School will be back in session and in full swing. With lively discussion, through music and prayer and creative projects, our students share in the opportunity of being together with other Jewish students every week, to learn and celebrate our values and traditions.

Please note that our weekly Tefilah—the school-wide Sunday morning prayer service—is open to all ages, whether or not you are part of the school. Feel free to drop by on Sundays between 9:00 and 9:40 and join in the participatory experience of prayer, song and learning.

A new program has begun for tots and toddlers from ages 1½ to 4 and their parents. Organized by Jody Pugach, with able assistance from Kerri Klein, and led by teacher Reina Stern, there have been two sessions so far and we look forward to seeing this program continue and grow. Families need not be members of Adas Emuno, so please help us spread the word!

At the opening of our December Shabbat Family Service, the Grade 5-6 class sang the song “Bring in the Light” in two-part harmony, as we lit the Chanukah and Shabbat candles. It was a beautiful, inspiring moment.

As we head through the winter and beyond, may we shine the light that is within each of us.

Please make a note of these upcoming dates in January and February for our students & families!

*Sundays, January 14 and February 11 
Confirmation Class 
Youth Group

*Friday, January 26 
7:30 PM—Shabbat Family Service led by Grade 4

*Friday, February 23 
7:30 PM—Shabbat Family Service with special oneg!

*Sunday, February 18—No School

AND SAVE THE DATE!  
*Thursday, March 1 
6 PM Pizza Dinner 
7 PM Purim Service & Spiel 

 *Sunday, March 4 
School Purim Carnival

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Hebrew Prophets

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we are pleased to share with you the following op-ed written by own Rabbi Schwartz, which appeared in the January 12th issue of the Jewish Standard, entitled Martin Luther King Jr. and the Hebrew Prophets—A 50th Anniversary Appreciation:

The night before his death, 50 years ago, on April 4, 1968, an exhausted Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the Masonic Temple in Memphis.

King arrived at the Lorraine Motel that afternoon so tired that he asked his second-in-command, Ralph Abernathy, to speak in his place. The night was stormy, tornado warnings had been issued, and the crowd in the giant hall was small. From a pay phone in the vestibule, Abernathy implored King to come out and keep faith with the sanitation workers who had braved the elements.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch describes what happened:

King’s entrance caused an eerie bedlam. Cheers from the floor echoed around the thousands of empty seats above, and the whole structure rattled from the pounding elements of wind, thunder, and rain. King came to the microphone at about 9:30, just as the storm was cresting, and launched into a rambling, rather unremarkable speech, until he came to the ending. "But it doesn’t matter now… because I’ve been to the mountaintop," he declared in a trembling voice. Cheers and applause erupted. "Like anybody I would like to live a long life—longevity has its place." The whole building suddenly hushed, which let sounds of thunder and rain fall from the roof. "But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will." There was a subdued call of "Yes! in the crowd.

“And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain,” King cried, building intensity. “And I’ve looked over. And I have seen the Promised Land.”

King’s eyes were brimming now, and a trace of a smile crossed his face. "And I may not get there with you," he shouted, "but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land."

By now the crowd was clapping and crying and the other preachers were closing in behind him. King rushed into his close and stumbled sideways into a hug from Abernathy. The preachers helped him to a chair, some crying, and tumult washed through the Masonic Temple.

In an unforgettable way, Martin Luther King Jr. reminded the American people with his last words that though a man may die, a dream does not. And it is no happenstance that King was referencing Moses, the greatest of the Hebrew prophets. Time and again King drew inspiration from the prophets of old.

In his famous Letter from Birmingham City Jail, in 1963, King wrote, “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their ‘thus saith the Lord’ far beyond the boundaries of their home towns… so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.”

In his iconic “I Have A Dream” speech at the March on Washington that year, King quotes the prophet Amos: “No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” He quoted Isaiah: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

Perhaps King’s most stirring words about the prophets were delivered at an address to the Synagogue Council of America on December 5, 1966. King began this section of his speech by saying, “When silence threatens to take the power of decision out of our hands… one looks into history for the courage to speak even in an unpopular cause. Looming as ethical giants are those extraordinary of men, the Hebrew prophets.”

King continues with this vivid description of the prophets: “They did not believe that conscience is a still, small voice. They believed that conscience thunders or it does not speak at all. They were articulate, passionate, and fearless, attacking injustice and corruption whether the guilty be kings or their own unrepentant people. Without physical protection, scornful of risks evoked by their unpopular messages, they went among the people with no shield other than truth.”

King stirringly concludes: “Today we particularly need the Hebrew prophets because they taught that to love God was to love justice; that each human being has an inescapable obligation to denounce evil where he sees it and to defy a ruler who commands him to break the covenant. The Hebrew prophets are needed today because decent people must be imbued with the courage to speak the truth, to realize that silence may temporarily preserve status or security but to live with a lie is a gross affront to God. The Hebrew prophets are needed today because we need their flaming courage; we need them because the thunder of their fearless voices is the only sound stronger than the blasts of bombs and clamor of war hysteria.”

A final testimony to King’s remarkable connection with the prophets: In 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the famous march on Selma, historian Taylor Branch described in an interview the influence of the Jewish theologian and activist Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s 1963 book, The Prophets, on King. He says: “He became like a driven Old Testament prophet… [King and] all those guys used to carry around Heschel’s book. They really identified with the prophets.” Many of us are familiar with the iconic picture of Heschel and King marching together in Selma, and Heschel’s remark that “I felt like my feet were praying.” Beyond the enduring friendship of this rabbi and minister, Branch writes that “Heschel’s seminal study of the prophets… gained the eager devotion of King and his fellow pastors.”

A half century after his untimely death, and as we celebrate an extraordinary life that now is marked with a national holiday, the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. inspires and challenges us anew. His devotion to prophetic ideals bids us in the Jewish community to rediscover our outspoken biblical forbears and their quest for justice.

How can we walk the prophetic path in these troubled times? How can we speak truth to power? How can we “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly”? For as our great sage Hillel said, “But leave it to Israel; if they are not prophets, yet they are the children of prophets.”

from the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

From the desk of …                    

 Rabbi Barry Schwartz

    

TRUTH TO POWER

I am honored that my rabbinical colleagues here in Bergen County have asked me to deliver the keynote address at the Sweet Tastes of Torah community night of study, Saturday night, Feb. 3, 2018 (7:00 PM) at the Fair Lawn Jewish Center.

My talk is entitled "Truth to Power: Prophetic Ethics in Troubled Times". It’s inspired by my new book, Path of the Prophets: The Ethics-Driven Life. I extend an invitation to you to join the several hundred people who gather at this annual evening of community learning. This year my address will be followed by break-out sessions led by a dozen of my colleagues. Each session will discuss a chapter of my book that elaborates on the prophetic path.

It gives me no pleasure to say that the publication of this book could not be more timely. It seems that we read about another sexual misconduct or political malfeasance scandal every week. As I will ask at the community event: “When will it end? Where will it end? How are we supposed to react? Is it enough to shake our heads or wring our hands? Is it enough to tusk-tusk and move on? Is it enough to forgive and forget? If this is a 'transformative' moment, then what have we learned? If this is a 'teachable' moment, then what do we say to our children?"

Enter the prophets. Even in their day they understood that the corruption of power is nothing new. They understood that the complicity of the elite is nothing new. And they understood that the apathy of the masses is nothing new.

Yet none of this stopped the prophets from speaking truth to power. None of this stopped the prophets from standing up when everyone else stood aside. None of this stopped the prophets from advocating for the path that I call “the ethics-driven life”.

Now more than ever, we need to rediscover these forgotten provocateurs who incited the most remarkable revolution in Western Civilization; who gave us the Great Commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves; who gave us the Ten Commandments that forbid murder and theft and adultery and lying; who gave us the charge to love the stranger, the widow and the orphan; who gave us the demand “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly”.

I hope to see you there!

Happy Hanukkah

On behalf of Congregation Adas Emuno

We wish you and yours a very Happy Hanukkah!

 From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

Exclusively Inclusive

Adas Emuno is a small congregation, as we all know, and that means that membership in our shul is something of an exclusive club. Of course, the final word on exclusivity was uttered by Groucho Marx, who famously said, "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member." This harkens back to a time when many private clubs had a policy of deliberately excluding Jews and other minorities from membership.

Marx's mocking aside, over the past century and a half, our congregation has never aspired to be one of those big, impersonal temples with many hundreds or even thousands of members. We embraced the approach so well expressed by the British economist, E. F. Schumacher, small is beautiful. I hasten to add that we do have room to grow, and we wouldn't mind a few more members.

In keeping things on a human scale, we don't force congregants to fit into predetermined molds. We remain flexible, able to tailor our expressions of faith, learning, and action to the needs and desires of our members. Ours is a shul that is personal, custom-made for our members.

In this sense, we are also an inclusive congregation, open to all who want to join together with us in the practice of our Reform Jewish faith. We are open to all who seek to worship, learn, and work together to heal our world.

We are exclusively inclusive, or maybe it's inclusively exclusive? Either way, if you think there are any ways we can do better, that we can improve in being open and intimate, warm and welcoming, inclusive and exclusive, please let us know. Let's make sure this is a club that we all want to belong to, that we all are proud to be members of, that even Groucho would be happy to join.